What has academic research revealed about the
quantifiable impact of advertising on business
performance? This article summarizes the
advertising-related findings in a recent Marketing
Science Institute book on empirical generalizations
about marketing impact. Two synergies stand out in that
regard. First, product innovation substantially
increases advertising impact. Second, distribution has a
predominant market-share elasticity that is greater than
1. Distribution is also the only marketing-mix element
that explains a substantial part of the variation in
new-brand performance. pdf 2009
